By Li Panpan

Chinese tech giant Huawei has significantly reduced dependence on US-made chips and components for manufacturing its equipment for 5G Small Cells, reported Nikkei Chinese edition recently.

The information is based on the result of a teardown report by Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a teardown lab in Tokyo. The Nikkei Chinese report said that it found that Chinese-made components account for 55% of the estimated production cost for Huawei 5G Small Cells, 6.8% higher than Huawei 5G base stations it dissected in 2020, while US-made components account only for 1% in the Small Cells, showing Huawei’s acceleration in using China-made component during geopolitical changes.

In its previous breakdown of Huawei’s base stations, a code, "Hi1382 TAIWAN," is printed on a key semiconductor device embedded on the circuit board of Huawei's baseband unit for 5G networks. The code indicates that production of the central processing unit for the equipment, developed by Huawei’s chip arm HiSilicon, has been outsourced to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's biggest contract chipmaker.

The Small Cell tore down this time uses products of HiSilicon, and does not carry major American components such as field-programmable gate array (FPGA) for communication control, said the Japanese report.

Fomalhaut speculates that HiSilicon’s products are its inventory manufactured by TSMC before the US export ban.

Not long ago, the global smartphone application processor market report for the third quarter of 2022, released by market research firm Counterpoint Research, showed that Huawei HiSilicon’s Kirin chip shipments are getting closer to zero. This means that Huawei has cleared the inventory of HiSilicon Kirin chips and cannot obtain chips from foundries such as TSMC and Samsung because of the US export bans.

The semiconductors in Huawei's base stations have been using products from US's Analog Devices and ON Semiconductor. However, it was found that the analog semiconductors used to control power and process signals, such as radio waves, were printed with Huawei's logo, indicating that it is a product designed by Huawei, but the manufacturer is unknown, said the Japanese report.